Features

Office workers who knew that standing during the day could keep them healthier still felt awkward when they stood during meetings while their colleagues were seated, a UK study found. 

While other studies have explored whether workers consider the idea of standing in meetings acceptable, the new research tried to understand the experience of workers who actually did it, said co-author Benjamin Gardner of the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College London. 

A lack of organisational, environmental and social support for standing — including adjustable sit-stand workstations, standing-only meeting rooms and high stools and desks — can make it feel awkward for workers to put the standing ideal into practice, he noted. 

“Although many organisations are supportive of the message to ‘sit less and move more’, this physical set-up encourages sitting and implicitly portrays it as normative — and standing as a departure from the norm,” Gardner said in an e-mail. “Our study is important because it shows how people feel when they break the sitting norm.” 

For the study, the researchers recruited 25 desk-based employees from three different UK universities between January and April of 2016. Each participant identified three upcoming workplace meetings of different sizes in which they would stand whenever they wanted and for as long as they wanted. A researcher observed these meetings and interviewed participants afterward about their experiences. Each participant received a voucher for £50 (about $66). 

In the interviews, participants reported feeling “awkward”, “disconcerted” or “stupid” when they were standing while others were sitting. They also worried that they would be viewed as “attention seekers” or that they were trying to take control away from the meeting hosts. For this reason, many participants ended up standing at the edge of the room, even though that sometimes left them feeling less involved in the meeting. 

For those who were hosting or presenting at a meeting, however, standing sometimes boosted their confidence, the study team reports in PLOS One. 

Some of these results, such as employees finding it “culturally unacceptable” to stand during meetings, are not surprising, said Gemma Ryde, a physical activity and health researcher at the University of Stirling in Scotland who was not involved in the study. But the research also highlighted unexpected findings, such as how standing might impact power dynamics during meetings and how it can affect employees’ attention and engagement, she said in an e-mail. 

Standing during the workday is viewed as a potential way to reduce the amount of time that people spend sitting, Gardner said. Sitting too long has been linked with various adverse health outcomes, including obesity, heart disease, cancer and poor mental health, he said. 

Office workers are at particular risk, he said, because they spend around two-thirds of the work day sitting. 

There are those who do not hesitate a second and embrace a technological innovation as soon as it is available — come what may. They boldly go for it, with the idea that you simply cannot go wrong if you swim with the powerful tide of technology. This way they are certain to stay ahead of the pack.

And then there are those who take a careful approach to anything new in the high-tech digital world. They prefer to wait and let others take the risk, pay the price of experimenting. They like to see how the market reacts to the innovation and how things develop with time. It is not just a matter of not spending money on high-tech on useless hightech, but more a question of not wasting time and effort on elements that may not prove so successful or that may not make it through the years.

Who is right and who is wrong?

There are countless, huge successful stories in Information Technology (IT). Some of them have changed our life for good and in a radical, dramatic way. At the same time, there are also several stories of failures (or semi-failures to be honest), of innovations that were short-lived. Of course the first count is infinitely higher than the second.

From software operating systems like Windows 8 that was quickly replaced by Microsoft with Windows 10 because of its shortcomings and not-so-good new ways, to Napster Internet client, the Palm Pilot of the mid-1990s, HD DVD media, and Nokia’s Symbian operating system for the early smartphones, the history of digital technology is full of ideas that did not last long. Those who blindly went for them wasted time and energy.

Last year Time Magazine published a story about these “non-successes” that it called “The 20 Most Successful Technology Failures of All Time”, and fool.com wrote another similar story titled “The 10 Biggest Tech Product Failures of the Last Decade”.

Against these rather sad stories about disappointment, one can always and rightly wield Windows 10, Dropbox, SSD drives, USB-C, fibre optic Internet, the latest high-end models of smartphones by Samsung and Apple, online banking, Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, WhatsApp, touch screens, and so forth.

The fact is it is impossible to foretell how and in which direction an IT innovation will develop, what kind and what level of popularity it will reach, and if it is here to last. Even IT gurus, even seasoned industry analysts cannot.

One way to go is to trust global numbers &general statistics. Given the high number of successful innovations and the relatively low number of high-tech failures, chances are that an innovation will be a success story rather than a failure. On the other hand a moderate, balanced approach seems to be what makes sense most.

Another way is to evaluate the objective usefulness of a new product, what it could bring you, personally and in a practical manner, if it ever proves to be great and here to stay. If you estimate that the innovation is important to you, then the risk is worth taking. Otherwise you may as well wait till the world has experimented with it before you take any decision regarding its usage.

In the end you only can tell if you were right or wrong after at least a couple of years of using a new IT product. Unless of course it happens to disappear earlier than that.

ORLANDO, Florida — Dr Kenneth Alexander was driving home one day last year when he thought of the idea: What if the Zika virus could be used to kill a childhood cancer called neuroblastoma?

The Zika outbreak was in its third year and scientists had learned that the virus damages the nervous systems of unborn babies by destroying the developing nerve cells.

Those developing nerve cells also make up neuroblastomas.

So, Alexander, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Nemours Children’s Hospital, started brainstorming with a surgeon colleague and brought on board Dr Griffith Parks, a University of Central Florida scientist who has been studying Zika.

After nearly year of research, the team published the preliminary results of their first study, showing that neuroblastoma cells that were exposed to the Zika virus in the laboratory died 10 days after being infected, making the virus a potential treatment for the cancer.

The team’s findings have been published in PLOS One.

“This is like all good ideas. It’s early and there may be a fly in the ointment,” Alexander said in an interview on Wednesday. “But at this point things are looking promising. The path ahead is there and we hope to get lots of other people interested in this research.”

Neuroblastoma is the cancer of nerve cells that reside outside of the brain. It is the second most common types of childhood cancer and has a disproportionately high mortality rate compared to other childhood cancers. It mostly affects infants and children under age 5.

Treatment usually involves surgery, chemotherapy or radiation, or a combination in high-risk cases. In some cases, none of the treatments work.

“There’s a lot of research on neuroblastoma, but we wanted to take a different approach [to finding a treatment],” said study co-author Dr Tamarah Westmoreland, a pediatric general and thoracic surgeon at Nemours. “I think Zika is holding great promise. In looking at these results, we think it can be used [along with] current therapies. However, we’re very early in this research.”

The Orlando team is not the first to look at cancer-killing potential of Zika.

Several groups, including one in the US and one in Brazil, have shown in preliminary studies that Zika infection killed glioblastoma cells in the adult brain, potentially opening new doors for treating this aggressive and common type of brain cancer.

Another Brazilian group reported in June that a Zika virus strain killed aggressive cancerous tumours of the central nervous system.

Alexander said what’s unique about his team’s research is identification of a surface protein called CD24.

The protein makes cancer cells susceptible to being killed by the Zika virus. Cancer cells that did not have the CD24 protein did not respond to Zika, Alexander’s team found in their laboratory research.

“So with these findings, we can ask what other cancers express CD24,” said Alexander. “Now we’re beginning to look at other cancer cells that express CD24 to see if we can kill them as well.”

Scientists do not fully know how the virus enters and destroys the cells. There may be proteins in addition to CD24 that make a cell susceptible to Zika.

“But at least we’ve gotten part of the story,” said Alexander.

This is not the first time a virus has been used to treat cancer, the history of which dates back to the 1940s. More recently, a modified form of herpes virus has been used to treat melanoma.

Alexander said that, based on his team’s preliminary findings, the Zika virus will not have to be modified from its natural form, because fully grown nerve cells are immune to the virus.

“We’ve got this fortuitous situation, where the virus can make a subset of people really sick. But for the majority of us, it’s a non-serious infection,” he said.

Most children and adults who are infected with the virus do not develop any symptoms or have a mild cold-like reaction.

Alexander said the potential therapy could be an injection, much like how mosquitoes infect humans. Or an injection to the site of an excised tumour to prevent the return of the cancer.

The team is now taking the research out of Petri dishes and into rodents.

Alexander and Parks, interim associate dean of research and director of Burnett School of Biomedical Sciences, are also planning to study how the CD24 interacts with the Zika virus.

How the media reports on suicides may impact whether others decide to kill themselves in the days following the original death, a study suggests.

An international team of researchers analyzed newspaper reports and suicide patterns over a four-year period to determine if any sort of coverage was more or less likely to spark copycat attempts.

“We’re not saying that reporting about suicides is bad or that news organizations shouldn’t report on suicide issues,” said study coauthor Dr. Ayal Schaffer, a professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Toronto. “But we know that specific aspects of reporting can have a significant effect on suicide contagion. This has been shown across many different groups and many different countries.”

It is important to realise that certain features of a story can decrease or increase the likelihood that others will try to kill themselves afterward, Schaffer said. “There’s a 1 to 2 per cent variance in suicide rates that are due to media reporting,” he explained. “Doing a quick calculation, in the world there are approximately 800,000 people who die each year by suicide — and that is probably an underestimate. But even a change of 1 to 2 per cent would be associated with a reduction of 8,000 to 16,000 deaths.”

As reported in CMAJ, the researchers gathered print and online reports published in the Toronto media market from 2011 to 2014. The 6,367 stories in which suicide was the major focus came from 12 major Canadian publications as well as one US newspaper with high circulation in Toronto (The New York Times).

Schaffer’s team also obtained a list of people who died by suicide in Toronto between January 1, 2011 and December 31, 2014.

The researchers then looked for an association between certain features in the stories and an uptick in the number of people who killed themselves in the week after the accounts were published. Among the factors that appeared to create an uptick were: the suicide method appearing in the headline, reports that firearm suicides had the highest lethality, heavy detail on the suicide method and statements that made suicide seem inevitable.

Certain features appeared to be protective, but the associations found by the researchers were not statistically significant, meaning the association might have been due to chance. People were less likely to try to copycat if the deceased was described in a negative light, for example.

“When people can really relate to the person in the story, they’re more likely to see themselves going down the same path,” Schaffer said. “Our hope is that stories will portray the death as a lost opportunity — if this person had gotten help he might have survived. Most people who try to kill themselves are ambivalent. They are suffering. And most just want relief. If we can provide them with relief they can get through the suicidal crisis.”

Schaffer and his colleagues hope that by studying the phenomenon in a scientific way, they will convince more journalists to handle stories about suicide with care.

The new study may actually be underestimating the effects of the media because it only looked at one week after the suicide, said Mark Reinecke, head of psychology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

“I think we’ve known for a long time that media can have an impact on suicide contagion,” said Reinecke who is not affiliated with the new study. “They’ve unpacked that and shown the specific types of information included in media can have an impact on outcomes. I think they are quite right.”

Stories can have a positive effect if they shed light on the role of mental health issues, said Dr. David Brent, a professor of psychiatry and the Endowed Chair in Suicide Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. “And certainly you can say something about the devastating effect the suicide has on people,” said Brent who is not affiliated with the new research.

A modern interpretation of a people’s car for the SUV and crossover milieu, the Renault Duster made the relentlessly popular “high-sided” vehicle an ever more accessible compact option for budget-minded car buyers. 

Not the first affordable or capable small SUV, the original Duster, first launched globally in 2010 and in the Middle East by 2012, however bridged the gap between dedicated compact off-roaders like the Suzuki Jimny and Lada Niva, and small sensible saloons pitched at emerging markets, like its own Renault Logan sister.

Dusting off a proven plan

With 2.45-million units sold under both the French brand’s core Renault brand name in the Middle East and under the company’s Romanian Dacia brand elsewhere, the first generation Duster proved popular in both developing and developed markets. 

Accounting for 25 per cent of Dacia’s worldwide sales and 20 per cent of Renault’s regional sales during its first incarnation, Renault are now banking on a second hit and following a similar formula for the new generation Duster, made its regional driving debut on demanding sun-soaked southern Jordanian roads and punishing off-road trails earlier this month.

Uncannily similar yet with no body panels shared with its predecessor, the new Duster’s design is distinctly better integrated and emanates more assertively feisty road presence. Retaining its predecessor’s basic mechanicals, underpinnings and platform, the new Duster instead receives tightened aesthetic makeover, and features significant driving and cabin improvements. 

However, the secret to the Duster’s success is its “just right” engineering. Small and affordable, it is however big enough for daily family duty and doesn’t look or feel cheap, and is designed throughout with similarly thoughtful rationale.

Rugged makeover

Not straying far from a winning formula the new Duster’s subtle aesthetic makeover includes slimmer part-LED headlights and new light signature, and a narrower grille and greater use of chrome for a broader and more sophisticated look. 

Meanwhile, a higher waistline, more rakish A-pillars, better integrated roof rails, more pronounced haunches and surfacing, new alloy wheels, wider rear skid plate and a stylishly fresh square crosshair rear light design lend a sportingly rugged flavour, which is further emphasised with optional fit roof mounted spotlights and a truncated front bull-bar extending from below the skid plate, as driven.

Offered with a choice of two carryover naturally-aspirated four-cylinder petrol engines for Jordan and the Middle East, the entry level Duster receives a 1.6-litre engine producing 113BHP and driving the front wheels through a Continuously Variable Transmission. Meanwhile the driven range-topping Duster 4x4 version gets a 2-litre engine driving all four wheels through a 4-speed automatic gearbox. 

Developing 133BHP at 5500rpm and 143lb/ft torque at 3750rpm, the Duster 4x4 makes good progress, with 0-100km/h acceleration in 11.5-seconds and a 178km/h top speed, while returning modest 8.5l/100km combined cycle fuel efficiency.

Comfort and agility

Adequately powered for its segment and progressive in delivery, the Duster 2-litre 4x4 however needed to be revved hard on steep inclines, where also first gear needed to be occasionally deployed. Gearshifts are smooth but could be slightly snappier. 

A fine model, the Duster 2.0 could however do with a more powerful model as the range-topper. With its chassis seeming well able to accommodate somewhere between 150-200HP, a more powerful range-topping Duster would be a welcome addition, as would a fifth gear to better exploit available power, or an optional manual gearbox option, as available elsewhere.

Talented through twisting roads, reassuringly stable at speed and comfortable over Jordanian roads’ lumps and bumps, the new Duster’s suspension set-up seems to be more refined, settled and eager than before. Tidy tucking into a corner the Duster drives not too unlike a family hatchback, and seemed agile and eager, for an SUV, when turning in early and in front-drive mode. 

It features a new electric-assisted steering system that is quick, accurate and 35 per cent lighter than the outgoing model. Settled on rebound and fluent over road imperfection surfaces, the Duster delivers good balance and grip.

Off-road ability

Isolating most noise and vibration bar the sharpest cracks, the Duster’s 215/60R17 tyres also proved comfortable on dirt roads. Driven in auto 4WD mode, the Duster can allocate power rearwards to maintain traction, while lockable 50:50 torque distribution provides more confident low-speed off-road driving. However, front-drive mode proved nimble on road and perfectly capable throughout moderately demanding rocky, loose, narrow and winding off-road routes, where 210mm ground clearance and good 21° approach, 30° break-over and 33° departure angles were particularly useful and allowed for more off-road ability than most drivers would ever need. 

Significantly improved inside, the new Duster features better aesthetics, ergonomics and textures. Its longer, better cushioned and bolstered seats with height adjustability and lumbar support provide a comfortable driving position. Spacious inside for all passengers, the Duster accommodates a minimum of 467-litres cargo volume, which extends to 1623-litres with rear seats folded down. 

Meanwhile, cabin ambiance is airy and visibility good. Better equipped than its predecessor, the new model comes with well-chosen standard and optional features include hill descent control, blind-spot warning, parking sensors, multi-view monitor, auto air conditioning, 7-inch infotainment touch-screen, keyless entry and more.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

Engine: 2-litre, transverse 4-cylinders

Valve-train: 12-valve, DOHC

Gearbox: 4-speed automatic, four-wheel-drive

Power, BHP (PS) [kW]: 132.7 (135) [99] @5500rpm

Specific power: 66.4BHP/litre

Torque, lb/ft (Nm): 143.8 (195) @3750rpm

Specific torque: 97.6Nm/litre

0-100km/h: 11.5-seconds

Top speed: 178km/h

Fuel consumption, extra-urban / urban / combined: 6.9-/11.3-/8.5-litres/100km

CO2 emissions, combined: 197g/km

Fuel capacity: 50-litres

Length: 4341mm

Width: 1804mm

Height: 1693mm

Wheelbase: 2674mm

Overhang: F/R: 841/826mm

Minimum ground clearance: 210mm

Approach / break-over / departure angles: 21° / 30° /33°

Wading depth: 350mm

Cargo volume: min/max: 467-/1623-litres

Headroom: F/R: 900/892mm

Cabin width: F/R: 1403/1416mm

Kerb weight: approximately 1200-1300kg (est.)

Suspension: F/R: MacPherson struts, anti-roll bar / multi-link

Steering: Electric-assisted rack and pinion

Turning circle: 10.15-meters

Brakes: F/R: Discs / drums

Tyres: 215/60R17

Salt Houses

Hala Alyan

New York: Mariner Books, 2018, 310 pp

In “Salt Houses”, Palestinian-American author Hala Alyan follows four generations of the Yacoub family, as they are pushed from Haifa to Nablus to Kuwait to Amman and Beirut, with interludes in Paris and Boston for the third and fourth generations. 

The book is a novel but it has the feeling of a memoir. And perhaps it is to some extent, for Alyan dedicates the book to “my family, who gave me stories to tell”. Being inspired by real stories may be what makes the narrative seem so authentic. In recounting multiple displacements, it mirrors the lives of many, if not most, Palestinian families, making it a sort of collective memoir, though fictionalised.

It is not, however, a simple allegory for the Palestinian experience. What makes the story so special is how Alyan crafts each character’s individuality and their interactions. While their multiple displacements are caused by war, the book does not dwell on these events but on how they impact the family members’ emotional lives and relationships. 

Alyan is a clinical psychologist specialising in the treatment of stress and trauma, and she brings this insight into her character development. Before writing this novel, she had published four volumes of poetry and her prose gives evidence of her lyrical skills.

For the first two generations, memory and longing are major elements in the characters’ emotional make-up, accentuated by the novel’s structure as it weaves back and forth in time and place. This is especially true for Salma and Hussam, who were forced to flee Jaffa during the Nakba. Hussam never recovers from their expulsion and dies a bitter man in Nablus. “Nostalgia is an affliction… Like a fever or a cancer, the longing for what had vanished wasting a person away.” (pp. 74-5)

In contrast, Salma soldiers on, creating a new life for their three children. Of the three, “Only Alia mentioned Jaffa after they arrived in Nablus, with the tactlessness of the very young… It would become the girl’s most endearing and exasperating quality, how she could become enamored of things already gone… But Salma was cheered when her daughter mentioned Jaffa… Salma missed her home with a tenacity that never quite abated. She spent the first years in Nablus dreaming of returning”. (pp. 6-7)

Still, Salma focuses on the present, upholding traditions when possible, but showing remarkable flexibility when needed. She is a survivor as is her outspoken and unconventional daughter, Alia, who continues the line of strong women and functions as the family matriarch after Salma’s passing. Alia’s memory loss in old age serves to set the importance of memory in relief. Also setting the psychological effects of displacement and loss in relief is the fact that the family is not poor; they do not have to struggle economically. Yet, though they set up comfortable homes in various places of exile, nostalgia persists.

It is as if Alia wants to defy their displacement with her daring, sometimes outlandish, behaviour; in most cases, speaking of what went before, what has been lost, is too painful: “Palestine was something raw in the family, a wound never completely scabbed over.” (p. 281) 

Alia’s husband, Atef, reacts differently, becoming more introverted. He serves as the family’s most sympathetic listener, and the vessel of their memories. Before Nablus was occupied, he and Alia’s charismatic brother, Mustafa, were drawn into the circle of an imam who preached resistance to Israel, and the two were arrested in 1967 when the Israeli army rolled in. Only Atef was released, and only he has an inkling of Mustafa’s fate which haunts the family for years. 

Atef struggles with the psychological aftereffects: “It’s like a shadow life… Like there’s another me, and that me is still stuck, like a skipping record”. (p. 79) Later on, as a form of therapy, Atef writes “letters” to Mustafa which his grandchildren eventually discover and read, trying to piece together the past their parents had spoken so little about. To them, Palestine is a meaningful motif, though they know little about it.

The novel’s title stems from Atef’s memories of all the houses they have lived in: “They glitter whitely in his mind, like structures made of salt, before a tidal wave comes and sweeps them away.” (p. 273) Salt is an apt metaphor for framing the family’s lives: It is savoury yet bitter, a necessity of life, a seemingly hard substance but one that crumbles under pressure.

Most family members marry and have children, and all struggle with the contradiction of wanting their children to know who they are as Palestinians yet wanting to protect them from the wars and separations that mark their lives. 

Besides war, they must also navigate the pitfalls of Westernisation, political Islam, and situations common to all, such as divorce, sickness, death from natural causes, parenthood and raising teenagers, etc.

Having herself once felt she belonged nowhere and everywhere, Alyan poignantly and precisely describes the Palestinian experience of displacement in this nuanced, evocative and elegantly written novel.

Clinical Dietician

Body shape categorisation (apple, pear and so on) has left many of us focused on our body shape. Our body shape is important when we want to shop for the outfit that best suits our body, but understanding our body type can make it easier for us to achieve our long-term health goals.

Your body type can provide information about how you respond to food intake and your hormonal and sympathetic nervous system (SNS) characteristics. Body characteristics can thus be linked to metabolic differences between individuals. Once you establish your body type, you can then adjust your food to maximise your body composition and health related goals. Knowing your body type will help you understand the type of exercises and nutrition you will need to help shape or change your body composition (muscle over fat ratio).

Body types

Ectomorph

• Smaller bone structure

• Typically lean and tall with thin limbs

• Have difficulty building muscle

• Have a very fast metabolic rate

• Very active and alert due to their high amounts of sympathetic nervous system hormones, which explains the higher carbohydrate needs of their body

Dietary recommendations

• Higher in carbohydrates, especially from fruit and carbohydrate-rich vegetable sources

• Low fat as a high fat intake can easily supress their appetite 

• Omega 3 fat rich foods such as oily fish (salmon, tuna, mackerel or sardines) to help control sleep and enrich their thyroid with iodine. Studies indicate that omega 3 food sources can ease sleep

Mesomorphs

• Medium body frame size

• Tend to be lean

• Body can produce higher amounts of growth hormones and testosterone (the male hormone)

• Build muscles with low body fat

Dietary recommendations

• Balanced in general with all food groups, carbohydrates, protein and fat with a variation of fruits and vegetables

• Are at higher need of Vitamin C and Calcium as the body tends to be more acidic due to higher muscle mass

• Alkaline the body by sipping anise tea at night or drinking carbonated water, especially during workouts

Endomorph

• Larger bone  structure

• Usually accumulate weight easily

• Muscles can tolerate heavy weight lifting

• Tend to be less active and their body is not effective in burning fat

Dietary recommendations

• Reduce carbohydrate intake

• Food intake should be mainly from fibrous dark green leafy vegetables

• Moderate amounts of fruit (three — four fruits a day) due to their high needs of B Vitamin complex, zinc and iodine which will help enhance body metabolism

• Moderation in protein intake, especially from legume or fish sources, rather than red or white meat

• Focus on good fat sources that are low in saturated fat

• Yoghurt aids in reducing the absorption of fat and enriches the intestine with the microflora that is an essential source of B Vitamin

Despite what it might feel like at times, you’re not completely bound to one category or the other. Your lifestyle, genetics, history and training style all play a part in how you look and you can definitely change it over time. Do not give up and try to choose the most appropriate diet that suits your body type. I guarantee that by eating right for your body type, you will be on the fast track to achieving your wellness goals.

Reprinted with permission from Family Flavours magazine

WASHINGTON — It has turned into a brutal reality check for Facebook.

The social network star — which had weathered storms over privacy and data protection — is now looking ahead at a cloudier financial future that threatens to end its years-long breakneck growth pace.

Shares in Facebook plummeted 19 per cent to $175.30 in early trade on Thursday, wiping out some $100 billion — believed to be the worst single-day evaporation of market value for any company.

The plunge came one day after the company missed revenue forecasts for the second quarter and warned that growth would be far weaker than previously estimated.

Chief Financial Officer David Wehner warned on Wednesday in an earnings call with analysts that revenue growth had already “decelerated” in the second quarter and would drop “by high single digit percentages” in coming quarters.

At one point during the call, Facebook shares were trading down as much as 24 per cent, an unprecedented drop for a large firm.

On the call, Jefferies & Co. analyst Brent Thill said that “many investors are having a hard time reconciling that deceleration... It just seems like the magnitude is beyond anything we’ve seen”.

Facebook said the slowdown will come in part from a new approach to privacy and security, but also appeared to acknowledge the limits of growth in advertising, which accounts for virtually all its revenue.

More humans needed

Richard Windsor, a technology analyst who writes the Radio Free Mobile blog, said the new outlook should not be surprising.

“This is a direct result of scale as it becomes increasingly difficult to grow at such high rates when a company hits this size,” Windsor wrote.

Windsor added that Facebook is forced to hire more people to handle tasks such as filtering inappropriate content after discovering the limits of artificial intelligence.

“Weaknesses in AI are forcing [Facebook] to keep hiring humans to do the jobs that the machines are incapable of,” he said.

Brian Wieser at Pivotal Research Group said the company appears to have hit a “wall” on growth in advertising.

In a research note, he said Facebook’s outlook “suggests that while the company is still growing at a fast clip, the days of 30 per cent-plus growth are numbered”.

Has social media peaked?

Until Wednesday, Facebook shares had been at record highs as investors seemed to shrug off fears about data protection and probes into the hijacking of private information by the political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.

For the second quarter, profit was up 31 per cent at $5.1 billion; revenues rose 42 per cent to $13.2 billion, only slightly below most forecasts.

Facebook reported its user base was still growing but not as fast as some expected. Monthly active users rose 11 per cent to 2.23 billion, below most estimates of 2.25 billion.

Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook has invested heavily in “safety, security and privacy” after being rocked by concerns of manipulation of the platform to spread misinformation, warning of an “impact” on profitability.

Ross Gerber, an analyst at Gerber Kawasaki, said the latest figures suggest that the tide may be turning for Facebook and other social networks.

“Social Media has peaked,” Gerber said on Twitter. “We told you last qtr and now we’re seeing it.”

Not so fast

Some analysts however said it was too soon to write off Facebook or its growth prospects, and that the company may have simply been warning of the worst-case scenario.

“The company has a track record of resetting revenue growth and expense expectations only to turn around and exceed those expectations the following quarter,” said Gene Munster of Loup Ventures.

“We suspect Facebook is sticking with its historical playbook and will, in fact, beat these lower numbers.”

Richard Greenfield of BTIG Research said he remained upbeat on Facebook despite the abrupt forecast shift.

“Facebook is actively choosing to make less money, deprioritising near-term monetisation to drive engagement to even higher levels,” Greenfield said in a note to clients.

Greenfield said he could “sense the fear/panic in investors’ voices” after the Facebook analyst call but that he has maintained his outlook.

“Mobile is eating the world and Facebook is a core holding to benefit from that shift,” he said.

Athletes and dietary supplement users can use a new infographic from the International Olympic Committee to help them decide whether to take or avoid a supplement. 

The committee’s Medical and Scientific Commission developed the infographic and a consensus statement around dietary supplements for high-performance athletes. 

“In many parts of the world, half of the population takes a dietary supplement, and people who are consuming supplements without getting the benefits are wasting their money,” said lead author Dr Ron Maughan of St Andrews University in the UK. 

Supplements include a wide range of products that incorporate added nutrients (such as protein shakes, sports drinks and fortified foods), essential nutrients in concentrated forms (such as vitamins, minerals, essential fatty acids and amino acids), herbals and botanicals, and products that promise health and performance optimisation. 

“Many times, those who take them probably don’t need them but those who need them don’t take them,” Maughan told Reuters Health by phone. “Those who are concerned about their health often get what they need through the foods they eat.” 

Maughan and 25 experts on the commission met in Lausanne, Switzerland, in May 2017 to review the scientific evidence on the benefits and risks of supplement use. After three days of discussion, they concluded that dietary supplements are a legitimate part of a high-performance athlete’s preparation, especially when used appropriately. 

The infographic, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, walks users through a decision tree of questions to understand whether they should take a specific supplement or not. For example, is there scientific support for the supplement instead of anecdotal or “conventional” wisdom from a few sources? Are the adverse reactions, medication interactions, and dose requirements of the supplement known? Are there any prohibited substances in the supplement label? Finally, the infographic suggests checking whether the manufacturer is well-known and has a good history and a quality assurance programme. 

If the supplement passes all the requirements laid out in the infographic, the commission recommends using it on a trial basis and then practicing vigilant use of the supplement. Ultimately, dietary supplements should be a small part of a person’s nutrition strategy and used sparingly when food-based options are not available, the commission wrote. 

“Make a small investment in speaking to a good dietician,” Maughan urges. “Know more than the basics about supplements and look beyond what you see on the shelf.”